Favorite Banana Bread Recipe
Years ago I was on the search for the best banana bread recipe. So many of the recipes I tried had too much oil, butter or sugar. The bread ended up being greasy. I found this recipe in 2006 and I haven’t turned back since.
The secret in this recipe is using low fat vanilla yogurt instead of oil. This makes the bread really moist without all of the butter and oil. I have made a few minor adjustments to the recipe.
- 1/2 cup sugar
- 5 tablespoons butter, softened
- 2 large eggs
- 1 1/2 cups all-purpose flour
- 1 teaspoon baking soda
- 1 teaspoon salt
- 1/2 teaspoon ground cinnamon
- 1/4 teaspoon ground nutmeg
- 1/8 teaspoon ground cloves
- 1 (6-ounce) carton vanilla low-fat yogurt
- 3/4 cup ripe mashed bananas (about 1 1/2 bananas) – I use 2 bananas
- 1/4 teaspoon vanilla extract (I omit this as the yogurt adds enough vanilla flavor for me)
- Cooking spray
- chopped nuts or chocolate chips
Preparation
- Preheat oven to 350°.
- Place sugar and butter in a large bowl; beat with a mixer at medium speed until well blended (about 5 minutes). Add eggs, 1 at a time, beating well after each addition.
- Lightly spoon flour into dry measuring cups; level with a knife. Sift together flour, baking soda, salt, ground cinnamon, ground nutmeg, and ground cloves. Add flour mixture and yogurt alternately to sugar mixture, beginning and ending with flour mixture.
- Fold in bananas and vanilla. Pour batter into an 8 x 4-inch loaf pan coated with cooking spray. Bake at 350° for 1 hour or until a wooden pick inserted in center comes out clean (I bake for 55 minutes). Cool 10 minutes in pan on a wire rack; remove from pan. Cool completely on wire rack.
Enjoy!
Sara
